Book Excerpt (and a Giveaway!): Love, Unexpected by Virginia McCullough

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

SERIES: Two Moon Bay #3
GENRE: Clean Contemporary Romance
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Heartwarming
RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2018
PAGES: 384

Moving to a new place isn’t easy…

Until a neglected ship and its owner make her feel at home

After spying a boat in need of some TLC, single mom Andi Sterling strikes a deal with its owner, Zeke Donovan, who shares her passion for restoring old things.

Uncovering the legendary ship’s secrets draws them closer.

Is it too soon for Andi to open her heart to the chance to build new dreams?

Andi stretched her arm to get deep inside a hard-to-reach cubbyhole behind the navigation table to check for damaged wood. Her hand hit a divider with a finger grip, but the first tug didn’t budge it. The second and third tries didn’t move it, either.  Determined now, she took a breath and gave it one more hard pull. Bam…she captured the graying piece of wood, but jerked backward with the force of the movement.

When she righted herself, she shined her flashlight inside to have a look inside the narrow space. The beam caught the corner of something that looked like paper.

“Well, well, what’s this all about?” she said to herself, curious and excited. Secret papers? That could be an overstatement, but these pages weren’t left out in the open. Someone had stashed them out of sight.

Papers in hand, she scooted back and stepped from the desktop to the cabin floor.

Rifling through the pages, she saw a couple of handwritten notes. They looked like they’d been torn out of an old-fashioned bookkeepers’ ledger. Andi smiled. It was like holding artifacts from an era long over. Looking more closely, one yellowed sheet had a list of mundane items, like hinges and various wood screws, and a list of fabric colors. No mention of a name anywhere or, specifically, Drifting Dreamer.

Andi pulled out a ledger page that showed what appeared to be scribbled phrases, at least a dozen of them. Paradise Bound, Fly Away, Serenity Seeker…all two-word names. And beside each one, someone, maybe the owner, had neatly written “No.” Andi smiled to herself. Zeke would get a kick out that list. The name Drifting Dreamer wasn’t even on it.

Wanting to be certain she’d left nothing behind, Andi stuck her hand in the locker and fished around, startling when her fingertips touched what at first felt like tissue paper. She gently pulled the paper forward and saw it was folded in thirds. The paper was fragile, so Andi gingerly spread it flat.

“Ah…a letter,” she murmured, conscious of the increased beating of her heart.

She scanned the page. Wow. She went back and read the letter again. She reached for her phone to call Zeke. Where would his imagination take him when he saw this? He’d already called the yacht’s past a mystery to be solved.

Andi smiled to herself as she pulled her phone out of her handbag and sent Zeke a text: Found something interesting on DD—really intriguing—stop in tonight if u can—anytime.

Other Books in This Series

A writer all her adult life, Virginia McCullough has had the opportunity to write the stories of her heart in her novels, including Girl in the Spotlight, the first book in her Two Moon Bay series for Harlequin Heartwarming. (Book 2 is scheduled for release in January 2018). Her award-winning romance and women’s fiction titles include The Jacks of Her Heart, Amber Light, Greta’s Grace, The Chapels on the Hill, and Island Healing.

Born and raised in Chicago, Virginia has been lucky enough to develop her writing career in many locations, including the coast of Maine, the mountains of North Carolina, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and currently, Northeast Wisconsin. She started her career in nonfiction, first writing articles and then books as a ghostwriter and coauthor. She’s written more than 100 books for physicians, business owners, professional speakers and many others with information to share or a story to tell.

Virginia’s books feature characters who could be your neighbors and friends. They come in all ages and struggle with everyday life issues in small-town environments that almost always include water—oceans, lakes, or rivers. The mother of two grown children, you’ll find Virginia with her nose a book, walking on trails or her neighborhood street, or she may be packing her bag to take off for her next adventure. And she’s always working on another story about hope, healing, and second chances.

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1 winner will receive a $50 Amazon Gift Card and the pictured Handfelted Wool Bowl and Gemstones (US only):

Description: A beautiful handfelted wool bowl filled with colorful gemstones to add a little beauty to your home. The bowl contains a small amethyst cluster from Uruguay which is generally used in rooms where people tend to congregate such as kitchens and family rooms. It is said to bring about peace and open communication. The bowl also includes a pink chunk of rose quartz from Brazil as a reminder of love and healing, a candle quartz crystal crystal from Madagascar said to make anyone who enters your home feel welcome, a pretty piece of blue lace agate from Southwest Africa to help create relaxing and accepting energy near your front door, a deep blue apatite heart from Sri Lanka to encourage the sharing of feelings and tangerine quartz from Brazil for information retention and perfect for your office, study or a student’s room.

Ends May 16th

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